


Firsts

by fedzgurl



Series: Trainer Bucky 'verse [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Powers, First Date, First Kiss, First Time, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Gym bros, M/M, Minor Sam Wilson/Riley, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, SO MUCH FLUFF, Trainer Bucky, first everything really, minor Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff - Freeform, relationship building
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-08-19 00:53:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8182643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fedzgurl/pseuds/fedzgurl
Summary: A collection of ten "firsts" in the relationship between Bucky and Steve, meant to fill in the time between the events of them meeting in 'Cardiac Therapy' and their happily ever after that comes in 'Personal Bests'.





	1. First Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few days after the events of Cardiac Therapy/Progress Reports: Steve and Bucky get to know each other a bit better over dinner. Bucky tries (and largely fails) to keep his cool.

Bucky surreptitiously checked his hair in the window of the CVS he was standing next to, doing his best to keep himself from either checking his phone for the hundredth time to confirm the time or worrying about whether or not Steve was going to stand him up.  It had taken them a few days to set up the dinner (date?) that they’d discussed during Steve’s last training session, but in the interim they had texted each other every day.  That had to be a good sign, right?

He sighed and gave up on his hair, turning back to face the subway station across the street again.  He was in the middle of reaching into his pocket to retrieve his phone when he caught a familiar blond hurrying his way across the crosswalk, stopping to yell at a cab that was trying to turn against the light before making his way towards Bucky.

Bucky wasn’t entirely sure what his face did when Steve looked up at him, but given the way his heart tripped in his chest he had to guess that it probably wasn’t particularly suave.  Not that he could really help it - Steve was already attractive enough in sweaty workout gear; somehow he reached an entirely different level when he wore street clothes.  His hair was artfully swept-back and gelled, rather than flopping in his eyes like Bucky was used to, and he wore a pair of thick, plastic-rimmed black glasses that had no business being as attractive as they were.  Bucky didn’t usually even go for the hipster look, but the way they made Steve’s big blue eyes pop even more than usual made him wish he could see them a lot more often.  

“Sorry I’m late,” Steve said breathlessly as he approached, jamming his hands in the pockets of his battered peacoat and giving Bucky an apologetic smile.  “I got caught up in a project for my illustration class and totally lost track of the time, then the trains were running behind…”

“Yeah, no.  It’s okay,” Bucky insisted immediately, shaking his head and shoving his own hands in his pockets before realizing that he’d perfectly mirrored Steve and pulling them out hastily.  “I mean, it’s not even that late, I haven’t been here long.  And you… uh, you look great.”

He snapped his mouth shut finally, and grimaced as he actually heard his teeth clack together with the force of it - there was honestly a time in his life when Bucky had been smooth, but it seemed like that had passed right along with his ability to not ramble on like an idiot.

“Thanks,” Steve responded, smiling softly and looking down at his scuffed boots as his cheeks turned just as pink as they did at the end of a workout… if he was bothered by Bucky’s big mouth, he did a damned good job of hiding it.  “You look pretty good yourself; it’s nice to see you guys own something other than black running pants and red polos.”

“Yeah,” Bucky laughed, a little too loudly, “sometimes it feels like I don’t own anything other than work out gear and work clothes, but,” he gestured to the dark-washed skinny jeans that did at least make his ass look killer, and thought of the sheer blue t-shirt that was hidden underneath his winter coat.  If nothing else, he knew he looked good; hopefully the date could be salvaged on that alone.  “Anyway, the restaurant I was thinking of is just a couple of shops up - have you ever had Mongolian barbeque?”

“Can’t say I have,” Steve answered, sounding a bit bemused, “what’s it like?”

“Well, it isn’t actually Mongolian in the first place,” Bucky said, shrugging as he pointed to the red awning in front of them, “it’s more Chinese, actually, but they cook it out on a huge barbecue pit in the middle of the room.”  They paused outside of the restaurant, and Bucky watched as Steve glanced over the menu posted next to the entryway.  “I mean, if you want to try it.  If you’d prefer something else…”

“No, let’s try it,” Steve interrupted him, smiling up at Bucky with a determined set to his shoulders that left no further debate about their choice.

He felt a lopsided smile of his own pull at his mouth as he grabbed the door to the restaurant and motioned for Steve go lead the way, before ducking in after.  The dining room was warm and dimly lit, decorated with red and gold accents that were stereotypical for such a restaurant but not so ostentatious that they detracted from the experience.  It was a reasonable dinner and show combination for a first date, Bucky thought, with a bit more privacy and a lot less cliche than Hibachi tended to be, and it hadn’t done him wrong so far.  Not that he’d had a ton of first dates in recent history, but - he felt good about his chances, especially with the considering look on Steve’s face as he glanced around the interior while their hostess greeted them.  

It was early enough in the evening that they were seated right away, at a little booth near the back of the restaurant away from the main grill.  At first Bucky was disappointed by the distance from the fun of it all, but he vaguely remembered Steve making mention of a hearing issue once or twice on the treadmills - suddenly he realized a dark, noisy restaurant might not have been his best choice, after all.

“This gonna be alright?”  Bucky asked as he slid into the seat across from Steve once their coats were situated.  He did his best to suppress his grimace: he hadn’t exactly thought of a back-up plan so he’d be screwed if Steve said no, but he also didn’t want to make that fact so obvious that an affirmative was a lie - the idea of blowing their first date on a miscommunication was one Bucky couldn’t bring himself to stomach.

“Oh yeah, it looks good,” Steve replied with a small smile, already picking up the menu and perusing his options.  Bucky wasn’t sure that he completely understood the question, but he also wasn’t going to go about blatantly mentioning one of his date’s disabilities if it wasn’t going to be an issue.

He’d just be careful not to mumble for the rest of the night.

“Anything you’d recommend?”  Steve asked after a few seconds of awkward silence, his huge blue eyes glancing up over the top of the menu.

“Ah, the grill is the most fun - that’s usually what I go with,” Bucky answered, toying with the corner of the drink menu.  “Plus it allows you to pick out whatever you want and watch it get cooked.”  Truthfully, he’d never ordered off of the pre-made menu before: if Steve picked an entree, it kind of eliminated the point of his picking the restaurant in the first place.

“That works,” Steve responded with a shrug, giving the menu one last glance before folding it shut and dropping it to the table.

Bucky did his best not to sigh in relief.

They were spared the impending awkward silence by the arrival of their waiter for the night, who introduced herself and offered to take their drink orders if they were ready.

“Um, I’ll have an iced tea,” Steve answered when Bucky motioned for him to go first.  He was immediately relieved that he’d done so - otherwise he’d have been the idiot who ordered a beer on his own.

“I’ll get a Pepsi,” he said instead, giving the waitress a smile as he handed the drink menu over, “and I think we’re just going to go with the grill for food.”

“Sounds good,” the waitress responded, taking their menus with a slightly diminished smile - Bucky could imagine that it was a let down to hear the cheap drink orders, and made a mental note to make up for it in the tip, anyway.  “You guys can head up when you’re ready, I’ll have the drinks out for you in a few minutes.”

There was a beat of silence after she left, where Steve studied the napkin-wrapped silverware bundle he was twisting between his fingers before blurting out, “I can’t really drink alcohol without it fucking up my stomach.  Or carbonated drinks, really…” he shrugged as he looked up a Bucky, meeting his eyes as the apples of his cheeks colored.  “One of the many lessons I’ve had to learn the hard way about peptic ulcers.”

Truthfully, Bucky was kind of glad that Steve had answered the question he’d been afraid to ask, while also being somewhat embarrassed that he hadn’t put it together himself in the first place.  “That sucks,” he responded softly, “I’m guessing citrus and spicy things are out, too?”

“Mmhmm,” Steve hummed, straightening up a bit in his seat, as if Bucky’s response had bolstered him, “and tomatoes, which is the worst because my ma’s tomato sauce used to be my most favorite food.”

Bucky responded with a sympathetic hum, storing that bit of information away.  He was infinitely glad that he hadn’t gone with the cliche idea of a romantic Italian restaurant for a first date spot - and while Steve’s food issues would put a limit on their options going forward, Bucky figured it was best that they just get it out in the open right away… he definitely hoped that there would be plenty of time and opportunities to work around Steve’s issues as they went forward. 

Since he’d been to the restaurant numerous times in the past, Bucky was the one who ended up leading the way through the dining room towards the raw bar that held all of the options for their dinner.  He was about to explain the idea behind the raw ingredients bowls and their sauce options for the grill when Steve stopped walking suddenly, a frown line forming between his eyebrows as he looked at the seafood station.  “Uh… I’m,” he started, the entire back of his neck flushing furiously, “I might need to go back and look at the menu again, actually.  I’ve got a really bad shellfish allergy.”

The fact that he wouldn’t even turn to look at Bucky after admitting as much told Buck all he needed to know about how much the admission had cost Steve.  He stepped around him carefully, pointing to the workers who stood at the rest of the stations that led up to the grill, “That should be alright, they keep all of the allergens separate and are a pretty big stickler about making sure that people don’t contaminate the tongs.  Then there’s a separate grill in the back that’s allergen free,” as soon as he said it he winced, realizing that it fucked up his idea of getting to watch the food cook.  “I mean - we won’t be able to see it on the grill, but they make sure to keep the soy and shellfish and nut products away from it.”

When Bucky looked back at Steve he was blinking up at him in surprise.  He briefly considered lying to play the admission off, but in the end he figured that coming clean would be the best policy.  “I, well - your chart listed food allergies, so I called ahead and made sure it wouldn’t be an issue with the kitchen.”

“Really?” Steve asked, still looking completely gobsmacked.

“Course,” Bucky answered with a shrug, trying to act like he wasn’t a complete worrywart about the whole thing.  “It wasn’t that much extra work, and I’ve heard anaphylactic shock can kinda fuck up the mojo on a first date.”

The surprised huff of laughter that burst out of Steve’s mouth released the tension between them, at least, and a second later he was shaking his head and making his way towards the protein bar.  “Yeah, you ain’t wrong about that,” Steve chuckled as he grabbed a bowl from the stack and began to load it with strips of raw steak.  

Bucky followed close behind, smiling crookedly in relief that the moment hadn’t blown up on him.  After a second’s debate he started loading his own bowl with pieces of chicken breast: personally he really preferred the shrimp, but if the rest of the night went well he wanted to at least have the option of stealing a kiss before they parted.

A guy could hope, anyway.

Since Steve’s dinner had to be cooked separately from the others they ended up leaving their filled bowls at the entrance to the kitchen, pausing only long enough to see Bucky’s thrown down on the grill and for Steve to give cooking instructions to the waitstaff - Bucky did his best not to eavesdrop, not wanting to make Steve feel any more self-aware about the special treatment than he already looked.  Once his bowl disappeared into the back they made their way back to the booth, sliding back into their respective seats and shuffling for a moment with their drinks and straws as an awkward but not entirely uncomfortable silence settled over the table.

“So,” Steve finally murmured as he stirred his tea with his straw, “how do you end up getting ‘Bucky’ from ‘James’?”

Bucky chuckled for a second, feeling the tips of his ears turn red as he balled up his straw wrapper between his fingers.  “My middle name’s Buchanan, and when I started first grade there were four other James in my class - two of them took Jamie, and I hated the idea of going by Jimmy, so… Bucky it was.”

“Your full name’s James Buchanan?”  Steve asked as a thoughtful frown-line appeared between his brows.

“Yeah, but not after the worst US president of all time,” he deadpanned - Steve laughed outright at that, causing a proud little twist in Bucky’s stomach as he basked in the glow of his ridiculous smile.  “My Ma’s maiden name; it’s a family tradition that the firstborn takes it as a middle name.”

“That makes sense,” Steve said with a smile, resting his chin on his hands and looking at Bucky like he’d just told the most interesting story in the world, rather than the simple origins of his stupid name.  It did all kinds of trippy shit to his ego.

“I guess,” Bucky shrugged, trying to keep his cool and act nonchalant about how ridiculously charmed he felt by everything that Steve did.  “What about you, any fun stories about your name?”

“Not that I know of,” Steve laughed, “Steven was just because my Ma liked it, I think, and my middle name is Grant after her grandpa.  Then Rogers is, uh, her name too…” Bucky motioned for him to go on, unsure of what Steve was trying to get at or how he could tactfully ask what the hell he meant.  “I mean, it’s her maiden name.  She never married.  I grew up with her and my grandparents.”  

“No siblings, then?” Bucky asked gently, hoping that he wasn’t overstepping his boundaries.  

“Nah, Mom’s had a couple of boyfriends over the years that were pretty decent guys, but I think having me and all of the hassle that’s gone along with it put her off having any other kids.”  Whatever else Steve had been about to say was cut off by their waitress arriving with their food.  After the couple of seconds that it took her to hand over the correct plates and give Bucky his requested chopsticks, the two of them settled into a companionable silence as they finished setting up their food the way they wanted it.

“What about you?” Steve suddenly asked, mixing the food in his bowl around with his fork as he looked up at Bucky.  “Er, family, I mean.  Do you have any around here?”

Bucky couldn’t help smiling at the awkward way that Steve had tacked on the last bit.  “Yeah, I was born in Indiana so all my extended family is in the Midwest, but my parents moved to Mapleton when I was six so all I’ve really known has been Brooklyn.  Mom and Dad still live in the same house with my two baby sisters, then my oldest sister Becca is almost done with her grad degree at Columbia.”  Bucky didn’t bother hiding the pride in his voice over his sister’s accomplishments - it was occasionally difficult living in Rebecca Barnes’ shadow, but he was still proud as hell of her, and loved all of his family more than was probably normal for a guy in his mid-twenties.

“So three sisters?” Steve asked after swallowing a bite of rice.

“Yup,” Bucky answered as he scooped up his own food.  “Becca and I are basically Irish twins - she’s a little less than a year and a half younger than me.  Then Betsy just turned twenty last month and Brianna will be eighteen in the spring.”  Bucky could practically see the teasing ramping up in Steve’s head between smirk that spread across his face and the mischievous light that appeared behind his glasses.  “And no, before you say it, my parents  _ don’t _ actually have a thing for the letter B.”

“I wasn’t gonna say anything!” Steve interrupted, although the laugh in his voice made it a little hard to believe.

Bucky laughed right along with him, raising his hands to show that he wasn’t actually offended by any of it.  “Besides,” he added as he took another bite of chicken, “the three oldest of us picked our nicknames, really - I think when Ma was pregnant with Brit they figured they would just give in on the inevitable.”

“It’s cute,” Steve said with a crooked smile, “it sounds like you guys must be pretty close.”

“Yeah,” Bucky agreed easily, “I mean, it helps that I never really went far from home.  But they’re all great.”  He bit his tongue before he said something stupid, like voicing the strange urge he suddenly had to introduce Steve to all of them, even though his rational brain still knew it was way,  _ way _ too early to even consider such a proposal.

He took a quick gulp of his soda as his mind ground to a halt over  _ that _ stupid word, and made a silent note to make sure that he didn’t even think about it in relation to Steve again.

“That’s awesome,” Steve said with a grin, thankfully oblivious to the sudden internal meltdown that Bucky was having.  “It’s just me and Ma now - my grandma died a couple years ago and Paps passed when I was in elementary school, and we never had much of an extended family.”  He shrugged as he stirred his food around in his bowl more, not meeting Bucky’s eyes as he continued talking.  “And I never actually met my dad - he bailed right after I was born.”

This time he did look up, and Bucky did his damndest to try to convey his sympathy without looking pitying.  It wasn’t a facial expression he’d ever thought to practice before - knowing his luck, he probably just looked constipated.

“I mean,” Steve continued quietly, “I don’t really blame him for it.  They’d dated when they were high schoolers, and a kid’s a lot to put on a nineteen year-old.  Make it one who was premature and had a couple of congenital heart defects…” He trailed off with a tired, sarcastic smile, and Bucky had no clue how to respond.  Before he could open his mouth to say anything stupid, Steve’s eyes widened comically.  “Fuck, that’s totally not first date talk, is it?  I didn’t actually mean to be a downer.”

“You’re fine,” Bucky insisted immediately, feeling his own cheeks heat with Steve’s obvious discomfort.

“I mean, I am.  And my mom’s incredible, I guess this is just the worst way of getting to the point of sayin’ I don’t have much in the way of family but it’s okay.”

There were an awkward few moments of silence as Steve trailed off and they both picked at their dinner.  All the while, Bucky tried to think of a single thing to say that wouldn’t make the entire thing more uncomfortable for the both of them; truthfully, he had no problem with any of what Steve had said, and he appreciated his honesty and getting to know more about the guy he’d been so interested in for so long… but saying as much didn’t feel right.

Finally, Bucky mustered up the nerve to ask Steve about what it was that he was studying (he knew that he had a ton of art classes and that he was finishing up an undergraduate degree, but had never explicitly asked before).  Thankfully it led to a lengthy explanation of Steve’s major (he was studying graphic design and illustration at Pratt - if he was honest he preferred to create more traditional art, but he stuck with graphics because he wanted to eventually find a job once he graduated), the reason behind his later degree (he’d started studying art at NYU but had to drop out due to health issues; Pratt was closer to home as he worked on recovering and preping for surgery and had offered him a decent scholarship once they’d seen his work and heard his story), and his living situation (he’d befriended another non-trad student at NYU who was studying psychology after getting out of the air force, and now shared a shitty apartment with him and his boyfriend).  For all that Steve talked, though, he made sure to constantly pull Bucky into the conversation as well, so that by the time the waitress came around to check on them and refill their drinks for at least the fifth time he was shocked to realize how long they’d actually been sitting and talking to one another.

Their brief discomfort was largely forgotten by the time the waitress finally came around with their bill, and after a brief debate over who would pay for it Bucky tucked his credit card into the folio, gnawing on the inside of his cheek to avoid grinning like an idiot when Steve insisted that he would be the one to pick up the tab at their next outing.  

If Steve was already hoping for another date half as much as Bucky was, then he was going to count the dinner as an enormous success.

Once the bill was paid they slipped back into their winter coats and made their way out of the restaurant in contented silence.  The sidewalk outside was empty enough that they could comfortably walk alongside each other, so that Bucky felt a little thrill run down his back every time he felt Steve’s thin shoulder bump against his 

Bucky watched out of the corner of his eye as Steve pulled his jacket tighter around him, and momentarily wished that he had a scarf or something to offer to help him fend off the chilly air - as it was he only had his own coat, and he knew that handing it over would make him look like a total putz.  “Uh, do you wanna head anywhere else?” He ended up asking instead, jamming his hands in his pockets.  “I know you said drinking wasn’t your thing, but there’s a couple of pretty good bakeshops and dessert places a block or two over.”

Steve pulled his phone out of his pocket, tapping the power button and frowning regretfully at whatever his lockscreen told him.  “I’d love to,” he started sincerely, “but I’ve got an eight am studio tomorrow and I still need to finish up a couple of rough sketches before I go in.”  The look he gave Bucky looked honestly disappointed, which helped to cut some of the sting of the rejection.

“Oh, sure,” Bucky responded, forcing a smile onto his face as they both started moving towards the subway entrance at the corner of the block.  “Are you a long way from home?”

“Nah,” Steve answered, “I’m in Bed-Stuy, so just a couple of stops down on the G.  What about you?”

“I’m walking distance,” Bucky shrugged, “about six blocks from the gym, actually.”

“That’s… convenient,” Steve murmured, thankfully not pointing out the fact that it was a damned-swanky neighborhood as well.  His weird rent situation was a conversation Bucky wanted to save for another time.

“Yeah, not bad,” he said, rocking back on his heels as they paused at the entrance to the subway stairs.  Steve still stood facing him, barely a foot away, shifting his weight on the balls of his feet as if he was waiting for something, as well.

Bucky wasn’t so clueless that he couldn’t see his opening - all he had to do was lean over, ask permission, and kiss him.  Despite all of his worry leading up to it they’d had a great night, Bucky thought, and Steve was still standing right there.  He just had to lean over.  And just… do it.

He couldn’t do it.

They stood there for a few more awkward seconds (or hours, for all Bucky could tell), before the stream of people skirting around them to get into the station finally registered in Bucky’s periphery.

“Well,” Steve murmured, breaking the silence.  “I… I guess I should get going.”

“Alright,” Bucky responded with a nod, internally kicking himself for having blown his chance.  “I, um, I had a really good time tonight.”

“Yeah, so did I,” Steve said immediately, brightening up enough that Bucky heaved an internal sigh of relief.  “I guess I’ll see you around?”

“Yeah, I’ll be at the Red Room,” Bucky answered immediately.  “And, y’know - if you wanna do something again like this.  Just… let me know.  I’d love to.”

Steve smiled outright at that, so brightly that Bucky’s heart skipped a beat.  “I would too, Buck,” he said softly, before chewing on his lip.

The little voice inside Bucky’s head screamed at him to lean forward already and close the distance between them.  He ignored it again.

“Anyway,” Steve continued, “thanks for everything.  I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Sounds good,” Bucky said lamely, “get home safe.”

Steve had the decency to laugh at it, at least.  “You too,” he chuckled, “goodnight, Bucky.”

Bucky watched from the top of the stairs as Steve made his way down into the subway station, kicking himself for not having had the balls to have made his move.  Once he was certain that Steve wasn’t going to come running back up the stairs like some cheesy rom com hero, Buck turned on his heel and started his way towards home, stuffing his hands in his pockets and anxiously running over the details of the night.  Aside from a couple of slip-ups he felt like the date had largely gone well, and Steve had definitely seemed to have enjoyed himself; Bucky figured it wasn’t unreasonable to think that, if nothing else, he could probably get another date out of him if he played his cards right and picked something fun.

He spent the rest of his walk planning out date ideas, and figuring out ways to either pull in elements from the gym or figure out Steve’s other interests to make them special, relentlessly going through any casual conversations they’d had either during that night’s dinner or on downtime at the gym.  Finally, he found himself with a handful of date ideas and an optimistic outlook on the night as he fished his keys out of his jacket pocket.  As soon as he was through the main door of his building, Bucky grabbed his cell phone out of his pocket.  It took a moment’s debate as he ran through the rules for post-date texting, but he ultimately decided to fire off his text, in part to make up for the awkward way he’d flubbed the kiss at the end and in part to gauge Steve’s interest in future dates.

**Text to:  Steve R  Sent: 9:31 PM**

_ hey Steve, just wanted to make sure u got in alright.   _

His fingers hovered over the keyboard on his phone for a few moments, before he finally typed up and hit send on the second part.

**Text to:  Steve R  Sent: 9:31 PM**

_ thanks for coming out tonight, i had a great time _

Bucky stared down at the screen, unable to bring himself to lock his phone or start towards the elevator until he knew whether he’d made a mistake or not.  After the longest two minutes of his life, a tiny blue checkmark finally appeared below his messages.  A second later the familiar ellipsis text bubble appeared on Steve’s side of the phone.

He didn’t realize that he was holding his breath until the text alert dinged with a response.

**Text from:  Steve R  Received: 9:35 PM**

_ yup no problems.  I had an awesome time too, thx for inviting me :) _

Something about the stupid smiley face at the end made Bucky grin like an idiot - even if the night hadn’t ended as planned, Steve was in a good enough mood to have responded to his marginally pathetic texts with a jaunty emoji.  And he didn’t seem the type to lead Bucky on or lie about his feelings, so he must have had at least a decent time.  Bucky forced himself to lock his phone, dropping it into his jacket pocket and finally making his way upstairs to his apartment.  He’d respond in the morning and hopefully see Steve at The Red Room within the next couple of days, and from there they could work out plans for a second date.  

And with luck, he’d make it up to Steve and lock up at least a few more chances to take him out again.


	2. First Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It takes considerably longer than it probably should, but Steve and Bucky finally get up the nerve to kiss one another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter should probably come with an insulin-resistance warning, I made it so sweet. I would say I'm sorry, but it would be a lie ;)

The thing about dating Bucky Barnes was, it was without doubt the best relationship that Steve had ever been in.  They’d only  _ really _ been dating for a couple of weeks, sure, but in the short time since Bucky had gone from being his hot, supportive trainer to being his hot, supportive (boy?)friend, Steve had been on a handful of the best dates in his life.  Their first dinner had been a little stilted and awkward, as all first dates were prone to being, but Bucky had been charming and thoughtful, going so far as to have called ahead and thought of Steve’s allergies before they could be an issue.  Most of his first dates in the past had given Steve either a blank stare or an eyeroll when the topic of his food restrictions had come up… so the thought that Buck had cared enough to have actually been proactive about it had been - overwhelmingly nice.

Steve had insisted on putting their second date together: thanks to his midterm studio schedule and Bucky’s time at the gym they’d had to settle for a simple coffee date, but it had easily been the most comfortable second date he’d ever been on.  A lot of the discomfort that had surrounded their first dinner together (particularly Steve’s big mouth rambling on about his family) was absent, instead leaving them to make free small-talk and get to know each other a little better, beyond the basics that they had covered on their first date and at the gym.  When they parted a couple of hours later, Steve couldn’t help being charmed over the shy way that Bucky had admitted to his love for all things space and his impressively long list of favorite podcast programs, and even moreso by how interested he seemed to be in learning about Steve’s favorite musicians and the artists that had made the biggest impact on his life and his decision to pursue a career in art in the first place.  It was odd to find a guy who seemed to legitimately give a shit about his life, sad as that admission was - but instead of dwelling on it Steve decided to enjoy it as much as he could while it lasted.

Bucky had insisted on taking the both of them to an exhibit at the MOMA the next weekend, a date that Steve had honestly dreaded; too many times in the past he’d ended up boring dates with his ranting about art, or starting arguments when he made the mistake of trying to make relationships work with fellow artists.  Bucky had been honest from the beginning about his lack of knowledge when it came to artwork, but had sworn that he had an appreciation for it and was happy for anything Steve was willing to share with him.  It wasn’t until Steve had realized that he had spent nearly twenty minutes rambling about the use of classical brush strokes in mixed-media compositions and turned to apologize to Bucky for boring him, only to find the brunet staring at the piece, completely enraptured by Steve’s words, that he actually began to believe him.  When he apologized Bucky brushed it off completely, insisting that it was fine.

“I  _ like _ you, Steve, and I wanna try to make this work,” he’d insisted as they finally left for the night, chuckling lightly as Steve tried to apologize again for getting a bit worked up over some of the exhibits.  “That means taking an interest in each other’s interests, right?”  He glanced down at Steve, raising his eyebrows as Steve completely failed to find an argument to his point.  “And I like to learn, and I like to see it when you get so passionate about stuff.”  It looked like Bucky wanted to add something else, but instead he’d dragged them off to some random vegan food truck that he had heard served mean Korean fusion food.  

Steve was still so blown away by the idea that someone he wanted could actually be so legitimately interested in  _ him _ that he’d never come up with a good response.

So… yeah.  Dating Bucky had honestly felt like a dream more often than it hadn’t, save for the one problem Steve could see with their budding relationship:  five spectacular dates into it, plus a number of brief encounters at The Red Room, and they still hadn’t so much as kissed.

On the one hand, Bucky continued to be attentive and sweet and funny, and Steve was starting to get the sense that he might really be the ridiculously romantic kind of sap who would want to put something like a first kiss off for a time when it was really special for the both of them.  It wasn’t like the lack of kissing was exactly detracting from the time that they spent together, so Steve was absolutely not about to bring it up as a problem between the two of them.  The last thing that he wanted to do was to push Bucky into something that he was uncomfortable with, or to give him the idea that Steve was unhappy with the time that they were spending together.

But on the other hand, it wasn’t exactly easy to ignore the mean little voice at the back of his head that liked to constantly remind Steve how far out of his league Bucky Barnes was, and how he was probably just reading all of this wrong.  Even though Buck had been the one to call many of their outings dates, and even though he had never done anything to seem disinterested or not attracted to Steve, it still seemed entirely likely that this was all some elaborate hoax, or some hilarious sitcom-style miscommunication where Bucky thought he was making a friend while Steve’s dumbass was following along looking for… considerably more.

Steve shook his head to clear the thought from it, scowling at the animation render on his laptop as if it had been the one to make him think it in the first place.  While he had definitely been burned plenty of times in his life, he had no reason to believe that Bucky was anything other than the nice guy he’d consistently been since Steve had met him a couple of months prior.  And even if he didn’t want Steve as much as Steve wanted him (an entirely reasonable conclusion to make, considering Bucky was a god-damned specimen of a man and Steve was… Steve), he still seemed to be interested in building something with Steve - and Steve wasn’t about to go kicking up a fuss about how slowly the physical aspect of that something was going and risk ruining the whole thing before it really got off the ground.

Plus, Steve was really damned tired of his roommate and his boyfriend constantly asking him for updates - almost as tired as Sam and Riley probably were of listening to him mope about the fact that every one of their stupidly awesome dates had ended with an awkward goodbye and not so much as a peck on the cheek.

“You do realize,” Riley had started matter-of-factly from his end of the couch where he was curled up against Sam’s chest, watching as Steve alternated between grinning like an idiot over how well the museum date had gone and moping over the fact that he had yet again ended up waiting around like an idiot at a subway stop only to leave with an awkward wave, “that you could just as easily ask for a kiss instead of waiting around for him to make the first move, right?”

“I know,” Steve sighed, lifting his glasses off of his nose and rubbing his eyes before turning enough that he could face his friends.  Truth be told, living with a couple like the two of them almost made the whole situation worse; Steve loved both Sam and Riley, and had never once been jealous of what they had - for everything that they had lived through, they definitely deserved the mutual happiness that they found in each other.  All the same, seeing how much they obviously loved one another made the whole Bucky situation that much more difficult to swallow.  “It’s just… I don’t want to seem to desperate, or scare him off or something.”

Sam snorted, adjusting his hold on Riley’s waist as he shifted to look better at Steve.  “I know I haven’t met the guy yet, but if half of what you’ve said about your dates so far is true, he’s definitely into you, Steve.  And isn’t he the one who asked you out in the first place?”

“I guess,” Steve conceded, glancing down as his phone chimed with a text alert and smothering the smile that threatened to take over his face when he saw Bucky’s name appear on the screen.  “Still… there’s gotta be a reason that he doesn’t wanna rush into things.  And I’m gonna respect that.”

Riley had the decency to shrug and go back to looking at the TV as Steve unlocked his phone, but he didn’t miss Sam muttering something about the two of them being perfect for each other.  He ignored it all the same, especially when he realized that the text was Bucky confirming that he’d gotten his schedule at The Red Room changed for the week.

Between Steve’s upcoming midterm project deadlines and Bucky’s influx of secondary applications for DPT programs they had both been worrying about the fact that their free time available for spending time together was about to become seriously limited.  Bucky had brought up the idea of taking on the late shift at the gym, if Steve would be interested in changing his workouts to that time: it would free them up to possibly spend time together after the gym closed for the night without spending travel time to do so, and also increased the likelihood that Bucky wouldn’t have clients scheduled at the time, freeing him up to help Steve through his own routines.

And so Steve found himself heading to The Red Room at ten PM that Wednesday, waving to Sharon as he passed by the desk to stow his shit in his locker before making his way out onto the main floor to grab a treadmill to warm-up on.  The gym was surprisingly dead for a weeknight; Steve had expected that a place with as loyal of a patronage as Red Room had would be packed with gym-goers at all hours of the day, but then he figured that with most of the New Year’s Resolutioners having faded out it wasn’t shocking to only have a few stragglers left an hour before closing time.  Still, the difference between the gym late at night versus during the afternoon was staggering - if he was honest, Steve almost wished he would have known about it sooner, as it probably would have made getting started on this whole exercise thing considerably easier.

But then, it may have also meant picking a different trainer, and that wasn’t a possibility that Steve’s brain even wanted to entertain.

He did his best to instead focus on his workout, and so was five minutes into his jogging/walking circuit before he finally caught Bucky in the farthest corner of the gym, working a client through the end of a heavy-bag routine.  The treadmill immediately began slowing down as Steve came to the end of his warm-up, so he didn’t bother worrying about looking away as he strained his eyes to get a good look at the way that Bucky’s back muscles strained against his polo shirt while he demonstrated the combination punches that he wanted the woman he was training to throw.

It was almost a disappointment when the thing came to a stop and Steve realized that he had to move to the weight machines if he was going to have a prayer at getting through both his legs and his back before closing time.

As was typical, Steve completely lost himself in the course of his workout, reveling in the burn as he pushed his way through each self-assigned station, watching each of his own moves in the mirrors that surrounded the weight room to help himself avoid injuries as much as possible.  It was a small miracle so far, he knew, that he hadn’t had a single injury yet - and as fun as it was to ogle Buck while he was there, Steve wasn’t about to let it distract himself to the point that he flubbed a rep because of it.  Other patrons on the floor might have been able to get away with it, but Steve knew his body well enough to know that he was nowhere near the point that he could give anything other than his total focus to his workouts.

And so, he largely forgot about the fact that Bucky was still around, at least until he was on the last of his sets of box squats and heard a pleasant, familiar voice from over his shoulder.  “Your form’s looking great, Stevie - is that another ten on your personal best?”

Steve tore his eyes off of his own form in the mirror to a point on the wall a few inches over his shoulder to find Bucky leaning against the box, watching him with a huge, encouraging grin.  As it was, the bar required too much effort for him to really respond - he finished the last two squats, rocking up onto his toes then moving forward in the box to rack the bar before finally turning around.  

“Yeah - probably gonna regret it in the morning, but I felt like goin’ for it,” Steve responded, unable to help smiling as Bucky’s face lit up even more.  “How’s your day been?”

“Can’t complain,” Bucky answered, grabbing the weights off of the side of the bar closest to him as Steve started racking the opposite side.  “That was my last client of the day, too - how many stations do you have left?”

“I’m doin’ 5-4-3-2’s, saving up maxing until Friday,” Steve answered as he pushed his sweaty bangs off of his forehead, only to have them flop back down into his eyes.  “All I’ve got left are cleans and deadlifts and cool-down.”

“Sounds good,” Bucky nodded as he followed Steve toward the Bar he’d already set up for said exercises.  “I’ll hang out and keep an eye as you finish?”

“Works for me,” Steve responded pleasantly, surprised by how true the statement was.  Usually it would make his skin crawl, the idea of someone watching as he lifted weights, even as much as he’d improved in the months since he’d started coming to The Red Room.  But something about Bucky’s calm, confident presence being around as he pushed himself as hard as he dared - it was more than welcome, and felt damned-near as gratifying as being able to complete the actual workouts themselves were.

Steve threw himself into the rest of his routine, pausing only to listen as Bucky gave him pointers on his deadlift that ended with Steve adding yet another five pounds on his personal best and grinning like an idiot as they put the bar away for the night and made their way to the treadmills.  Bucky joined him on his cool-down, running along at a ridiculous pace on the treadmill next to Steve and keeping up an easy conversation about a series of documentaries he’d started watching lately, which Steve primarily only hummed along to (and appreciated the distraction from how badly his lungs were burning as his machine finally started to slow for a walk at the completion of his run).

By the time they were finished the rock music that had been playing from the speakers overhead faded out, and Natasha’s voice sounded over the sound system to announce that the gym would soon be closing.  Bucky powered his machine down as well, giving Steve an awkward little wave before jogging over to the staff-only area, one that left Steve feeling impossibly lighter as he made his way to the locker room to change, given how late in the night it was and how hard he’d gone on his body.

Bucky jogged over from the staff office as Steve finished pulling his sweatsuit on, grinning as he caught him at the door.  “Hey,” he started brightly, as if he was thrilled to see Steve and hadn’t spent the last half hour with him already, “are you in a rush to get home?  Because there’s this really great smoothie shop that I found a couple of blocks down Union Ave in your direction, if you wanted to stop and get a protein shake on the way?”

“Sounds great,” Steve responded automatically, infinitely glad that he’d forced himself to finish his essay that was due the following afternoon when he’d first gotten home from classes in hope that he might get to spend extra time with Bucky after meeting up at the gym.  They made their way casually through the Brooklyn night, pointing out familiar restaurants and haunts as they passed them and genuinely enjoying the night together.

The smoothie bar might have looked out-of-place in the neighborhood that they finally stopped in, if it weren’t for the ridiculous artisan chocolatier across the street and the coffee shop two storefronts over.  Bucky held the door open for him as Steve adjusted the strap of his gym bag on his shoulder, before ducking inside and stopping to look at the menu as the couple in front of him ordered.

“Surprised they’re still open this close to midnight on a weeknight,” Steve pointed out as he glanced over all of the options in front of him.

“There’s a few gyms in the area, and a pretty big dance studio a couple blocks over,” Bucky said with a shrug, “plus they’ve got this really good pea-based protein powder and a ton of rice and vegan options, so I think people are willing to go out of their way to get to it.”

Bucky was still incomprehensibly worried about Steve avoiding dairy, nut, and soy products - a fact that probably would have annoyed the hell out of him had it been anyone else - but somehow Bucky’s earnest concern about his health regularly made Steve’s stomach flop in stupid ways.  It probably had to do with the fact that there was never any worry or condescension when he brought it up, just quiet, subtle cues that he’d actually cared enough about Steve to make an effort to make things easier for him.  

He ended up ordering a blueberry smoothie with the pea protein powder in it, just to show his appreciation.  Bucky’s own order was made with some generic whey protein powder, and he insisted on paying for the both of them when Steve started to reach into his bag at the register.  In the end, Steve agreed without much argument - as long as Bucky promised to let Steve get the next one, as usual.  They both smiled like idiots as they came to an agreement, and Steve was at least ninety percent sure that he wasn’t imagining the insufferable little smirk on the face of the worker who ended up handing their drinks over once they were finished being made.

They stepped back out into the night a few minutes later, having spent just long enough in the smoothie shop for Steve to admit that Bucky was right - he was hardly a connoisseur of protein shakes, but this one definitely was the best that he’d ever had.  Outside, the moon was bright enough to actually outshine the light-pollution that came with the city, and it was finally getting close enough to spring that Steve felt relatively comfortable in his hoodie and coat.

“It’s absolutely beautiful out here tonight,” he ended up sighing happily as they came out from under the shadow of the awning of the shop.

“Yeah,” Bucky murmured quietly, and Steve  _ definitely _ wasn’t imagining the quick way his eyes averted to the sky when he glanced over at him.  

The fact that Bucky had undoubtedly been looking at him was all of the confidence Steve needed to try to push the night a little further.  “Seems a shame to get on the train at this point,” he continued vaguely, “I think I’m just gonna walk home.”

There was a beat of silence where Bucky took a long drink of his smoothie, before hesitantly speaking up.  “Er… that’s a pretty long walk, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Steve acknowledged, “but it’s so nice out, and I’m still so amped up that I’m hardly goin’ to bed any time soon.  Plus that’s half the reason I started coming to the gym in the first place - so I could do something like this if I wanted.”

Bucky was quiet again after Steve’s words, but he continued walking alongside Steve in awkward silence.  Steve was almost positive that they were walking in the opposite direction of Bucky’s apartment, but he wasn’t about to bring as much up.

“Uh… I know you don’t need it or anything, but, erm - would you mind if I join you?”  Bucky finally stammered.

“If you want,” Steve answered immediately, carefully avoiding any indication that he felt Bucky should do anything different.

“Yeah,” Bucky said with a nod, “it’s been years since I’ve had a nice night-time stroll around town, and like you said, it’s a great night for it.”

And just like that, they fell back into their comfortable companionship, slowly making their way towards Bed-Stuy while shooting the shit over any inconsequential thing that came to mind.   It was almost a surprise when Steve realized that he’d come to the bottom of his smoothie cup, and even moreso when they came to a stop in front of his building.

He barely felt tired, despite the fact that they’d been walking for a sold forty minutes and it was now after midnight.  Instead, all his brain could focus on was how he could stretch their time together even a little bit longer.

“I had a great time tonight,” he heard himself murmuring, stepping up onto the first stair of the stoop into his building and standing there, holding on so tightly to the strap of his bag that his hand was hurting.

“Yeah, same,” Bucky had agreed.  “I work the same shift Friday, if you wanna do it again?  I mean,” he added quickly, “I’m probably gonna be busier cuz the gym is usually more busy heading into the weekend, but we could maybe do something after?”

“Absolutely,” Steve responded firmly, remaining exactly where he was on the stairs and staring at Bucky, as his heart started to race for no discernible reason at all.

Bucky continued standing at the foot of the stairs, shifting his weight awkwardly on the balls of his feet as he played with the straw in his empty cup.  While it was on the tip of Steve’s tongue to just say goodnight and head inside, there was something about the moment - something in the air that kept him rooted to the spot, standing like a mook on the first step up and watching Bucky in awkward silence.

It felt like an eternity had passed before Bucky finally nodded shortly and looked up at him, his eyes intense in the security light of Steve’s apartment building.  “C’n I kiss you?”  He asked in a rush of breath, a tiny, worried line drawn tightly between his eyebrows.

Steve huffed a short laugh at the absurdity of it all - if Buck had any fucking idea how long he’d been waiting for exactly that… 

“Yes,” he murmured, already leaning towards Bucky.

The fact that they were on separate levels meant that they were almost the same height - but as Steve leaned down Bucky had surged up in a rush, diving at Steve’s mouth with frantic urgency.  Steve’s nose smashed against the side of Bucky’s face, while their lips barely glanced off of the side of each other’s in a sad, rushed approximation of a kiss.  They parted almost as quickly as they’d come together, blinking in embarrassed surprise.

It was Bucky who recovered first, laughing brightly as he sat his cup down on the ledge of the stoop and stepped up onto the same stair as Steve.  “Okay, that was just sad,” he murmured with a broad smile, taking Steve’s face gently in his huge hands.  “C’mere, let’s get this right…”

He bent down slowly, giving Steve plenty of time to stare at his ridiculous lips, his heart racing in his chest before he carefully went up on his toes.  Their mouths met slowly this time, a tender press of closed lips against one another that ended up sending chills all the way down Steve’s back, into his toes.  They remained frozen there for a moment; cliche as it was, Steve was half-afraid his shitty heart was going to beat right out of his body, and before he knew it he found himself bracing his left hand against Bucky’s broad chest, surprised to find his heart pounding as well.

After a few moments Bucky backed away slightly, putting a few millimeters between their lips.  Steve’s eyesight wasn’t good enough to see exactly, especially with their faces so close together in the dark, but he was pretty positive that Bucky was just as wrecked as he was feeling - Steve had enough of an eye for color to know that his pupils were blown wide-open, since his eyes were definitely considerably darker than usual.  There was a beat, and then Bucky closed the space between them again, pressing two more tender, searing kisses to Steve’s mouth.

They were both breathless when he stepped away completely, biting his lip as he shyly reached behind him and picked up his trash.  “That’s more like it,” Bucky murmured quietly when he turned back to Steve, who could feel himself grinning like a fucking idiot but couldn’t find a reason to feel embarrassed about it.

“Yeah,” he responded, his voice so rough that it surprised himself.  “Yeah - we oughta do it again sometime, maybe?”

“For sure,” Bucky agreed with a huge grin, pushing his hair back off of his forehead as he stepped back down to the sidewalk.  “I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”

“Definitely,” Steve answered immediately, jiggling his cup against his hip.  

Bucky made no move to walk away - after a few seconds of staring at eachother like the love-sick dopes they apparently were, Steve realized that he should probably make a move, before they ended up rooted in place for the night.  “Let me know when you get home, alright?” He said quietly, walking up the rest of the stairs of the stoop and sticking his key in the exterior door.

“Will do,” Bucky promised, his voice equally light.  He took a couple of steps away from the entryway, walking backwards so that his eyes were still locked on Steve’s - it was so charming that it took every ounce of Steve’s self-control not to run after him and kiss him again.  “G’night, Stevie,”  he finally said, giving Steve a tiny wave before turning and starting back towards the train station in earnest.

“Night, Buck,”  Steve muttered - it was probably too quiet for Bucky to have heard, and he immediately turned the key in the lock and rushed into the building, before he embarrassed himself any further.  Once the door was closed behind him, Steve couldn’t help but allow himself a quick fist-pump; he was so fucking excited about the impromptu date and  _ finally _ getting some indication that Bucky was into him that he thought it was well-earned.  

Thankfully, there was no one around to witness it - he shouldered his gym bag after tossing the dregs of his protein shake in the trash can in the entryway, then made his way up the stairs to his apartment, grinning like a fool despite his best attempts to smother it.  

He was still feeling giddy as he turned his key in the lock to his apartment door and sneaked inside.  He was in the middle of shouldering his bag and making his way to his bedroom when Riley glanced over the top of the couch, only to do an epic double-take and crow out with glee.  “Oh my God, he finally did it!”

Sam’s head appeared a second later, and something about his wide, gap-toothed smile only made Steve blush harder, even though he felt more ecstatic than embarrassed by far.  “Holy shit, you did,” Sam laughed, pushing himself up completely and patting the couch cushion next to him as Steve felt his face continue to burn up, even as he smiled so hard that it made his face hurt.  “Get in here and spill - was it good?”

Steve licked his lips despite himself, feeling his stomach dip pleasantly as he tasted the chocolate from Bucky’s protein shake still on them.  He knew that his friends would get a huge kick over admitting how big of a mess their first kiss had  _ actually _ been, but for now Steve felt like that was a secret that he wanted to keep between himself and Bucky.  Not because it was embarrassing, per say, but because it was so perfect that it felt like something that shouldn’t really be shared.  

And that?  That was enough of a description, really.

“It was perfect,” Steve ended up saying smugly, before turning towards his room, “but I need a shower before bed, so that’s all your nosy-asses are getting for now.”

The mixture of laughter and grumbling from the living room that followed him down the hall to the bathroom were exactly what Steve had expected, but he grinned all the same as he stripped out of his sweaty gym clothes and stepped into the spray of the shower.

He was in the middle of crawling into bed after changing into his pajamas when his cell pinged again, showing Bucky’s name on the lock-screen.  Steve slid it open to read the new message.

**Text From:  Bucky  received:  1:42 AM**

_ just home, no problems.  great seeing you  _

**Text From:  Bucky  received:  1:42 AM**

_ have a good night.  :* _

Steve stared at the second message for a solid minute, until his screen finally went to sleep, leaving him staring in the pitch-dark of his room as a grin started to yet again take over his face.  He wound up dropping his phone onto his nightstand and setting his glasses beside it, before rolling over and jamming his face into his pillow, feeling like some stupid giddy teenanger but loving every second of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's probably going to be a little while before I can get to the next installment of this because I have a few other stories in mind that I want to start giving attention to and because school is beyond insane right now, but I promise that I'll be back with more sweetness from these saps.
> 
> Up next: The First Morning After


	3. First Morning After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Bucky's physical relationship progresses quickly after their first kiss - only to culminate in breakfast and a lazy morning after.

The first thing that Steve noticed as he slowly drifted into wakefulness from the last remnants of an already-forgotten dream was that his room was considerably brighter than usual; within seconds, that thought progressed to the realization that he wasn’t in his room in the first place.  The light was off, the mattress was softer than usual, the pillows weren’t quite right and the smell was only vaguely familiar.  Before he could work himself into any type of concern over the unfamiliar surroundings, though, he placed the scent - Bucky’s shampoo - and just like that the night before came flooding back to him.

While they’d made every effort to see each other as much as possible over the past week, their schedules had been so crazy that by the time the weekend rolled around Steve was so exhausted that he was more than happy to hear Bucky’s idea that they simply have a lazy night in at his place, with nothing more fancy than take-out and Netflix to keep themselves occupied.  Buck promised that his roommate would be staying at his girlfriend’s place (after bashfully confessing that he shared a one-room apartment with his friend Clint and lived in a sheeted-off sunporch to save on rent… as if it were an anomaly to be sharing rooms as Millennials living in Brooklyn), and his apartment was every bit as nice as Steve had been expecting for a place in Williamsburg - even if Bucky was embarrassed of the set-up.  

It really hadn’t mattered anyway, once they’d finished off the Peruvian chicken they’d picked up on their way from the Red Room and settled in on the couch.  The thing was, since they’d finally gotten the courage to share that first kiss a week ago, it seemed like they could hardly  _ stop _ kissing; Steve barely had time to register what the documentary Bucky had put on was about before he’d nuzzled into Bucky’s neck, and from there it was only a matter of time before they were too wrapped up in one another’s mouth to give a shit about what Neil Degrasse Tyson was talking about or how close Bucky’s bed was to the living room sofa.  By the time Steve had ended up in Bucky’s lap (and whose fault that was he wasn’t entirely sure of), the proximity of the bedroom turned out to be a blessing anyway - Buck had barely had time to pant out a question about bed before Steve was all-too-happily being dragged through the sliding glass door on the opposite side of the apartment.

From there, Steve was way too enthralled with watching as Bucky deftly stripped his work clothes off to pay attention to much else: he damn near tripped as he tried to shimmy out of his own skinny jeans while simultaneously getting a glimpse of Bucky’s abs in all of their ridiculously defined glory as he flung his red polo shirt across the room.  The problem was, as soon as Bucky was actually naked in front of him, Steve barely had time to really appreciate the view before he recognized the intensity with which he was studying Steve’s body.

Steve instinctively dragged his eyes away from the broad, muscular build in front of him, unable to help wincing at what he realized Bucky was staring at - while he’d put on an admirable amount of muscle mass in the months since joining the gym, his limbs were still whispy at best, and could probably be more accurately described as scrawny.  His stomach was still concave, his ribs still poked through the pale skin of his chest: while he didn’t look sick anymore, per se (or at least nowhere near as sick as he’d looked in the year leading up to his surgery), the difference between Steve’s body and the practical work of art that was Bucky’s was still a stark one.

And that was without mentioning the  _ actual _ art, which Steve realized Bucky was seeing for the first time.

Before the surgery and his recovery and the gym, the only thing about his body that Steve had been particularly happy with had been his tattoos, and his favorite one by far had been the chest piece he’d had done first.  It was all original art that he’d been doodling for as long as he could remember, a bright, bold shield framed by wings and a collage of watercolor Americana that he’d had done for his eighteenth birthday to cover the sternotomy scar that had been left by the operations he’d had as a baby.  While Doctor Cho had done her best to sew it back together after his most recent surgery, there had been so much scar tissue to deal with that the discongruence was still obvious - a big, ugly band of lumpy scarring that skewed all of his hard work, emphasizing that for as badly as Steve wanted to be normal, his body was never going to cooperate.

“Sorry,” he muttered, already reaching for his shirt in the dim light of the room; he hoped that if he could throw it back on he might be able to convince Bucky to keep going, that he’d be worked up enough by the rest of their foreplay that his disgust over Steve’s chest wouldn’t completely derail the evening.

Bucky grabbed his wrist before Steve could grab it though, and gently pulled him back so that he was facing Bucky as they both stood next to the bed.  It took every ounce of courage that Steve had to actually look him in the face - but for all of the expressions that he had been dreading he’d find there, the open look of admiration wasn’t one of them.  

“Sorry for what?” Bucky murmured, his voice low and raspy and apparently wired directly to Steve’s libido, because it came roaring back just as quickly as his embarrassment had scared it off.  

“Y’know, for…” Steve muttered, looking down again as he gestured vaguely to his nearly-naked body.

The beat of silence that followed seemed to last forever - definitely for long enough that Steve seriously considered running out of the bedroom to avoid whatever disappointing reaction Bucky was building up to.  Before he could manage to get the nerve up, his thoughts were interrupted by the gentle press of lips against the dip between his collarbones: Steve blinked in shock as he watched Bucky continue dotting his chest with reverent kisses, closing his eyes when the feel of blatant adoration and his own emotions surrounding it got to be too much.  He was still so blown away by the whole thing that he barely noticed when Bucky moved on to his neck, ending at Steve’s jaw and remaining stooped enough that their faces were inches apart.

“You’re gorgeous, Steve,” he murmured quietly, leaning down and pressing a feather-light kiss to Steve’s forehead before leaning back with a teasing grin.  “And right now my only complaint is that you’re still wearing these…”

He punctuated the statement by snapping the waistband of Steve’s boxer briefs.

The whole thing was so genuine that Steve wasn’t capable of much more than staring in shock; Bucky wanted him.  Bucky’d seen the worst of him,  _ had _ to see how ridiculously lopsided of a pair they made, and he still wanted to get Steve in his bed.  If he hadn’t spent the past month getting to know him so well Steve would have been certain that it was all a trick, that Bucky was just some douchebag who was looking to humiliate him horribly or use him in an even worse way, but... Steve knew better.  He knew by this point that Bucky was a great guy - no one could have kept up the act for this long, especially without reason.

“Er,” Bucky’s voice interrupted his stream of thought.  Steve blinked as Bucky stepped back the couple of inches that the tiny room allowed before his knees hit his mattress, suddenly looking as mortified as Steve had been feeling from the start.  “Unless - I mean, unless you don’t want to.  I don’t wanna make you feel like you’ve gotta do anything you’re uncomfortable with, I just thought…”

Steve didn’t wait to hear what Bucky’d thought: the rush of affection he felt for the ridiculously perfect man in front of him surged through him with enough force that he instinctively shoved him back onto the bed, before shucking his underwear with a scoff and diving right in with him.

The sunlight in his eyes pulled Steve back to the present again, and he couldn’t help but smile as he stretched against the sheets, feeling the pleasant ache in his back and glutes and thighs as he remembered what had happened after.  Between his looks and his health Steve hadn’t had a ton of experience in the sex department, but he’d been with enough people to know that his first time with Bucky had been  _ really _ good.  And when he’d asked for a few minutes to catch his breath once they were both finally spent, only to be met with Bucky’s shy offer to stay the night if he wanted, well -

Steve had already known he was doomed.  But curling up against Bucky’s chest and falling asleep with his head tucked under Bucky’s chin had made it completely worth it.  

Speaking of: Steve rolled toward the center of the bed, already looking forward to picking up where they’d left off the night before, only to frown in confusion when he failed to make contact with anything other than empty sheets.  He squinted his eyes open, unable to help his disappointment when he found the pillow next to him as unoccupied as the sheets were.  

For one horrible, completely irrational moment, Steve worried that he might have imagined the entire night before.  He pushed the thought away almost as soon as it occurred, though - for as poor as his eyesight was, he could still see well enough to know that the bed he’d woke up in obviously wasn’t his.  On instinct, he reached behind him, letting his fingers skim the cool corkboard of the nightstand beside the bed until they came into contact with his glasses.  He pulled them on, before sitting up just enough that he could actually get a look around the room: sure enough, the four walls were made up mostly of windows, all covered with thick red sheets that gave the room a warm glow in the early morning sun.  It was cluttered but relatively-well organized at first glance - there was a small desk and bookshelf jammed into the furthest corner of the room, stuffed mostly with textbooks save for the top shelf which Steve thought looked to be mostly paperbacks.  The only other furniture that fit in the room beside the bed were the two nightstands on either side of it; Steve’s had nothing but a stack of fitness magazines visible on the top, but the stand on Bucky’s side displayed a digital alarm clock and two small photo frames.

Steve found himself unable to reign in his curiosity - after a brief glance towards the sliding door to the room he slid across the bed, smiling softly at the images they displayed.  The frame furthest from the bed was full of mostly familiar faces from the Red Room; judging by the minor differences in both Natasha and Sharon’s hair styles Steve guessed that it was most likely when they’d all joined on as trainers together after college.  Beside it was a posed photograph of Bucky with three younger girls, all of whom had similar enough bone structure that they were obviously siblings, as well as an older man with Buck’s cleft chin and steely eyes and a woman with a warm, familiar smile.  Steve studied it for a few moments, trying to guess how old it was based on the minor differences he could make out in Bucky’s appearance.  

By the time he’d given up on snooping there was still no sign of Bucky, and Steve couldn’t bring himself to continue waiting on his own.  He slid out from under the warm cocoon of blankets; luckily he’d dropped his underwear close enough to the bed the night before that it only took a moment’s worth of searching to find them and pull them on.  After that, though, he was faced with a conundrum.

The fitted button-down he’d worn over to Bucky’s the night before had always been one of his favorite shirts for how well Steve knew it fit him, but in the lazy morning light he hardly wanted to squeeze back into it.  He regretted immediately not having gone to the gym the night prior - at least he would have had a spare sweatshirt in his bag that he could have lazed around in (not that he would have ever had the confidence to have hoped for a lazy morning after in the first place).  He was about to give in and pull the wrinkled shirt on anyway, when his eye caught a flash of royal blue across the room that grabbed his attention.

There was a faded, ridiculously comfortable-looking baseball shirt hanging over the back of Bucky’s desk chair.  Steve moved towards it instinctively, grabbing it up and holding it at arm’s length to get a better look.  The shirt looked clean enough, and based on the size it was obvious that it was an older one of Bucky’s - the collar was a little stretched out, and the  _ BROOKLYN _ logo screen-printed across the front was barely visible for how faded it was, and for reasons completely lost on Steve he wanted nothing more than to slip it on and see how it looked on him.  After a second’s worth of debate, he gave into the urge.

The shirt hung off his shoulders a bit, and fell long enough that the hem skimmed the elastic bands of his boxer briefs, but for as large as it was he didn’t feel ridiculous for wearing it.  For a moment, Steve considered pulling his jeans back on as well - but it was still early enough in the morning that the idea of squeezing into denim seemed entirely unappealing.  He glanced across the room, catching his reflection in the mirror he hadn’t noticed propped up against one of the covered windows: his legs were still pale and thin, of course, with knobby knees that he would probably have until the day he died, but for the first time in his life there was actually some definition to his calf muscles.  And, he couldn’t help thinking with a blush, if the hickies on his thighs were any indication Bucky didn’t have a problem with his chicken legs; so there was no point in Steve taking issue with them, either.

In a rush of confidence, he kicked his jeans aside and instead scooped up the black knit socks that had been kicked off underneath them, shoving his feet into them before he could think otherwise.  They were hardly a fashion statement in themselves, but the majority of the apartment floors were hardwood and Bucky and his roommate apparently hadn’t found it necessary to spend cash on carpets - and Steve’s circulation was still too shitty for him to walk around barefoot in the winter without being entirely miserable.

Without taking another look at the mirror Steve slid the door to Bucky’s room open and tip-toed into the living room, making a beeline for the bathroom when he realized that it was unoccupied.  After peeing and washing his hands, Steve couldn’t help but grin at the wrapped toothbrush he found sitting beside the sink, and took a quick moment to wash his face and finger-comb his hair into some semblance of order before brushing his teeth, all the while feeling mushy enough about Bucky’s thoughtfulness that it was almost enough to get over the fact that he still had no idea where he’d gone off to.  Had they been at Steve’s place he definitely would have been angsting over the idea that Buck had snuck away on him, but the idea of him abandoning Steve in his own empty apartment was too paranoid of one for even Steve to entertain.

He made one last attempt at pushing his bangs back off of his head - there was still just enough gel in his hair to make it a greasy mess, but not enough to tame it into an actual style - before giving up with a sigh and abandoning the bathroom, deciding to go searching for Bucky in earnest.  As it turned out, he didn’t have to look far: the living room was empty, but a glance through the doorway just beyond it showed the familiar brunet leaning slightly against the countertop in the kitchen, all of his attention focused on the frying pan that was sitting on the stovetop burner. 

The entire scene lit a weird spark in Steve’s chest - Bucky had pulled on what looked to be a fresh pair of boxers, but Steve recognized his flannel shirt as the one that had been flung over the back of the recliner in the living room the night prior.  Even more endearing, though, were the mismatched tube socks on his feet - one black and the other white with red stripes around the ankles - jammed into a pair of ratty old house shoes that Steve had to bite his lip to avoid giggling at as he approached the kitchen.  Before he could announce himself, Bucky shifted slightly and flipped something in the pan with a spatula, muttering under his breath as it apparently fell apart on him.

Steve did laugh at that, although he was fairly confident he managed to mask it in time as a dry cough.  Bucky spun around as soon as he heard the noise, blinking for a moment before glancing across the tiny room to the clock on the kitchen wall.  “Dammit,” Bucky groaned when he saw the time, “sorry… I wanted to surprise you with breakfast before you woke up, but - it’s not pannin’ out how I’d planned,” he glared down into the pan as he finished, before scraping again at the sides with his spatula.

“It’s alright,” Steve responded quietly, making his way across the linoleum and sidling up along Bucky’s side, before going up on his toes to press a quick kiss to the stubbly angle of his jaw.  “I mean, I was a little bummed to wake up in an empty bed, but I’ll let it slide this time.”  He punctuated the last bit with a wink, hoping that Bucky would know better than to actually feel guilty about it.

Bucky responded with a nervous, quiet chuckle, rubbing the back of his neck as he nodded towards the pan again.  “Yeah, well - I’m just hoping they’re worth it, at least.  I’m kinda wishing I’d given them a test-run before this morning.”

Steve pressed himself lightly against Bucky’s side, ducking under his left shoulder so that he could actually get a look at the set-up himself.  The counter next to the oven looked to be occupied entirely by baking supplies, with a blender full of what Steve guessed was probably batter, although why it had been mixed in a blender instead of a bowl was completely beyond him.  And in the pan… well, the pan on the stove definitely looked like it was supposed to be cooking a pancake, although a pancake that was a little charred on the edges and had completely crumbled apart into pieces when it was flipped over.

With a frown, Steve turned his attention back to the ingredients: he wasn’t a chef himself by any means, but Bucky had struck him as the type that was self-sufficient enough that he should have at least been able to flip a pancake.  It only took him a moment to realize the issue; instead of a box mix, the counter was home to a couple of banana peels, a box of rice milk, a container of baking soda, a cannister of pea protein powder that Steve recognized from the hipster juice bar they’d began frequenting together, and a bag of some tan grain that didn’t exactly look like flour.  Steve squinted, adjusting his glasses on his nose in an attempt to see better, and finally was able to pick up the writing on the label - ‘Brown Rice Flour,’ whatever the hell that was.

“I hope that’s all alright,” Bucky muttered, interrupting Steve’s thoughts as he nodded towards the blender.  “They’re supposed to be hypoallergenic.  I realized the other day that I didn’t know your allergies yet, and I didn’t wanna just assume you were gonna want to spend the night and ask.”

His ears turned red as he trailed off and flipped the pancake out of the pan into a covered plate next to the range.  Steve had been tempted to point out the fact that he was actually okay with gluten, and in fact had a box of Bisquick at his own apartment that definitely would have ended up being breakfast had they stayed the night at his place, but Bucky’s obvious discomfort coupled with the idea that he’d gone so out of his way to think of Steve shut that thought up immediately.  “I’ll get you a list before I leave,” Steve ended up promising instead, his voice thicker with emotion than he’d intended.  “Where did you even find this stuff?” He added in a lame attempt to lighten the mood.

“There’s a little health food boutique near the Red Room,” Bucky responded as he poured more of the batter into the pan.  “And one of the workers vouched for the recipe and the ingredients.”  He sighed as the cake immediately began bubbling in the frying pan.  “If you wanna go out somewhere instead, though -”

“No,” Steve interrupted immediately, “it doesn’t matter what they look like, I just can’t believe you went to all the trouble.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Bucky asked incredulously, looking away from the stovetop with an indignant frown.

The intensity of his response through Steve for a loop.  “I mean, I appreciate it, I really do.  I just... I’m pretty good at figuring out my diet stuff on my own.  And,” he shrugged, hoping that he wasn’t offending Bucky more than he probably already had, “I mean, I guess no one else has ever really bothered.”

“Then they were idiots,” Bucky countered, flipping the pancake with more force than was probably necessary as he scowled down into the pan.  “It’s not like it takes that much extra effort, really, and the least I can do is make sure if I’m gonna make breakfast that it’s somethin’ you can actually eat.”

Between his residual surprise over the fact that Bucky had gone to all of the trouble in the first place to his insistence that Steve was entirely worth it (and his obvious refusal to hear otherwise), Steve found himself entirely overwhelmed with emotion.  He had no idea how Bucky could manage to continue proving himself to be so good, and so obviously into Steve - and even worse, how to express his gratefulness for it all without sounding like a complete idiot.

After a momentary debate Steve reached across the stovetop to push the pan away from the burner.  Before Bucky could say anything about it, Steve fisted his hands in the front of his undershirt, pulling him down for a deep, lingering kiss that he hoped got his point across.

Judging by the dazed smile on Bucky’s face when he finally turned back to the range, Steve figured he’d done an adequate job.

“Good morning, by the way,” Steve added with a smirk as he watched Bucky move the frying pan back to the burner and go back to work.

“Yeah, it definitely is so far,” Bucky chuckled as he started trying to slide the spatula under the pancake without tearing it apart, “even if breakfast isn’t cooperating.”

Once the last of the batter had been cooked as well as possible they ended up settling on the couch with their plates, half-watching Steven Universe re-runs as they demolished Bucky’s pancakes.  For as sad as they looked, they hadn’t turned out badly… they were a little on the grainy side, and more of them were burned than weren’t but Steve made sure to point out multiple times that they tasted like banana bread, which definitely made them better than regular pancakes anyway.

“I’ll give you a list of everything that might try to kill me before I leave,” Steve pointed out as he pushed the last bite on his plate around to sop up what was left of his syrup, “but for the record, I think we should make these again.  They’re really good.”

“That’d be great,” Bucky responded, licking his lower lip and blushing over the complement in a way that was so adorable that Steve wanted nothing more than to haul him back to the bedroom again.  

He quickly stomped the urge down, actually listening to the little voice in his head that told him to slow the fuck down for a change, and instead settled for leaning slightly against Bucky’s shoulder and resting his empty plate in his lap.  They stayed that way for the rest of the episode, resting in contented silence, until the credits began to run and Bucky gathered up both of their plates before pushing himself off of the couch before disappearing into the kitchen.

“What do you do when your roommate is home,” Steve asked out of the blue, glancing at the proximity of Bucky’s glass bedroom door to the couch.  “I mean - I can’t imagine that’s the most sound-proof?”

Bucky laughed ruefully, shaking his head as he walked back in from the kitchen and flopped onto the couch, far closer to Steve than was probably necessary (not that Steve dreamed of complaining).  “It’s not at all, but Clint’s hard of hearing, so as long as I give him a heads up and stick to my room he can leave his hearing aids off and is none the wiser.”  When it was obvious that Steve was going to make no move to scoot away from him, Bucky threw his arm over the back of the couch, pulling down the pilling blanket from the back and draping it over the both of them.  “And uh - I haven’t really brought many guys home since I moved in anyway, so it’s never been an issue.”  

The idea of Bucky having any trouble finding a boyfriend was one that Steve found patently unbelievable, but he decided to let it slide, instead settling in to Bucky’s side with a contented sigh.  “I can definitely see where that’d be convenient,” he murmured a few moments later, paying more attention to the soothing way that Bucky’s fingers traced over the point of his right shoulder than whatever the plot of the cartoon still playing on the TV was supposed to be.

The end of the third episode had Steve giving in and glancing at the clock on the wall, frowning as he realized how late in the morning it was getting.  He regretfully rose from the couch, making his way to where he’d left his coat hanging on the makeshift coat rack beside the door and pulling his pillbox out of the inside pocket.  “I, uh - might’ve given in to wishful thinking and packed this yesterday, just in case,” he admitted to the floor when he noticed Bucky watching him.  “I mean, I didn’t really  _ plan _ to stay, but I was still kinda hoping, so.”

“Well, I’m glad you did,” Bucky responded warmly, holding the corner of the blanket up so that Steve could slide back into the space that he’d vacated. 

Steve did exactly that, trying his best not to feel too self-conscious as he shook the handful of meds out into his palm and downed them with a couple of gulps of rice milk.  He was almost to the point that he was able to accept the idea that Bucky really wasn’t going to reject him for all of his health issues - there was no way that he couldn’t realize how big of a mess Steve was by this point - but he’d also always made a point of timing dates so that he’d be able to keep his ridiculous number of pills to himself; actually taking them in front of someone somehow felt like a major step.

They lazed around through another pair of episodes, before Bucky sighed regretfully, “I’ve got the afternoon shift at the Room, so I’ll need to be leaving in an hour and a half.  Not that you’ve gotta go before then, just a heads up.”

“No problem,” Steve yawned, “I should probably get some work done this afternoon anyway.”  They lapsed back into a comfortable silence for a while, when Steve remembered their earlier conversation.

“So for future reference - the only two things that are likely to actually bring the epi pen out are shellfish and tree nuts.”

Bucky blinked for a second, looking confused, then seemed to remember Steve’s promise about telling him his list of food restrictions and nodded for him to continue.

“And I’ve always got it on my so really contamination isn’t the end of the world.  Just - they’re the biggies I have to watch for.  Peanuts are surprisingly okay since they’re legumes.  Soy isn’t really an allergy so much as I have trouble digesting it, so I try to avoid it.  No caffeine because of the arrhythmia stuff.  Strawberries make my mouth itch so they’re out, and with the ulcer issue I’m supposed to stay away from acid - no sodas or tomato sauces or citrus juices.”

He took a deep breath before continuing, thankful that Bucky still looked politely interested as opposed to bored or worse.  “I’m lactose intolerant, so technically I  _ can  _ eat dairy.  It’s okay in baked goods, and in small amounts if I remember to take Lactaid first, but for the most part I stay away from it for everyone’s sake.”  He chuckled self-deprecatingly, glad when Bucky joined in.  “And, er - that’s about it as far as food goes.  Not that it isn’t more than enough to be going on.”

Bucky nodded quietly, although as he did Steve could practically see his thoughts turning over in his head.  “So, wheat…” he finally asked slowly.

“I don’t have any issues with wheat or gluten,” Steve admitted guiltily.  “Not yet, at least.”

“So this morning wasn’t just a failure, it was totally overkill,” Bucky deadpanned, cocking his eyebrow.

“I’m telling you, honestly, the pancakes were good!” Steve insisted with a laugh, already feeling guilty for having admitted it so soon.  Maybe he should have just let Bucky stick with his assumptions for a while longer, for the sake of sparing his feelings.  “And given everything else that’s wrong with me, it’s not like Celiac is an unreasonable concern.”

Bucky shrugged nonchalantly, “I should’ve just asked,” he responded lightly, although for reasons he couldn’t put a finger on Steve could tell that he was beating himself up for it.

“Hey,” he said quietly, grabbing the angle of Bucky’s jaw gently and turning it so that they were looking in each other’s eyes.  “It’s alright.  The fact that you keep putting up the effort is what’s important.  I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bucky murmured, although the smile pulling at his lips at least was looking more genuine now.  “You keep sayin’ that.”

“Really.  Seriously.”  Steve continued, grinning like a lunatic as he climbed into Bucky’s lap, only to smile impossibly wider at his surprised giggle.  “Lemme prove it?”

Steve pouted teasingly, but barely had time to make his face before Bucky was pulling him down closer for a steamy, sticky kiss that Steve was more than happy to melt into.  They still had a solid hour before Bucky had to leave for his shift at the gym, and Steve had every intention of using them to thoroughly show his appreciation.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! I've been really excited to come back to this 'verse, and had originally planned on writing this fic for my SBB this year, but in the end I decided to save it for a time when I could flush it all out more. School this year is especially crazy so updates will probably be pretty slow, but hopefully they will ultimately be worth the wait.
> 
> As always, I live for comments. And if you'd rather interact over tumblr you can find me there at [0n-y0ur-left](http://0n-y0ur-left.tumblr.com/), where I spend most of my free time yelling about these idiots.


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